Ludology - Final Impressions

So here we are, half way through official classes of my masters degree, and it is time to say farewell to this most interesting of subjects.

We have covered a lot in just 3 short months and the workload has been high. However, being a Masters, this was to be expected and I found the work challenging and enjoyable. This module is also the only really game related subject we have done so far so I wanted to get my head stuck in as much as possible. I found much of the content very interesting and I do feel I've picked up a lot in terms of how games are developed as well as some of the theory behind gameplay. Getting to sit around in college for 4 hours a week with a class and lecturer who all up on the nerdometer like me was very gratifying. Having a lecture where we watch and discuss a post mortem of Dead Space (one of my all time favourite games) is one of the greatest moments of my long and so far relatively fruitless education. My new love of blogging was also something begun for this class so even if I was to leave college tomorrow, I feel I will have gained much from Ludology.

We've had a lot of different assignments that people either loved or hated, but in the end, no matter how small or seemingly forgotten these occasionally were, they are all by far the most interesting projects I have ever worked on. I can honestly say Ive never attacked anything with the intensity and glee as I have some of these. Fair to be said several I found very frustrating and stressful, but with a nice slab of hindsight and Christmas on the horizon, I can only look back with satisfaction.

While many of the projects were small and unmarked, more to get us thinking in the right way, several are worthy of note. Our biggest project so far was creating a board game. Me and three other learned fellows developed Dominion, and epic space opera strategy game aimed at übernerds and board game enthusiasts. This is involved a lot of planning and working out of rules. This project really showed me the incredible amount of work and testing that goes into even the most simple of board games. For more on this there is a development blog on the following link.
http://dominiongameblog.blogspot.com/

Another interesting but rather frustrating one was the Digital Prototype project. Here we literally had to create a game from scratch using a fiddly bastard called Gamemaker. One of the more interesting aspects of the this project was the theme. Our theme was William Shakespeare, where we had to base our game on an aspect of his work. Regardless of my actual project, and overlooking the flaws and difficulties associated with Gamemaker, this was another project that really gave me a great knowledge of how games like platformers are put together. I will never look at another 2D platformer like Mario again, now knowing how such games are logically structured and assembled.

Some screens of my Macbeth based platform game

There were several other smaller week long exercises or workshops that were also fun, like the forgotten puzzle exercise or else where we had to describe our life as a game. A short review project involving some online games was also interesting and I learned a lot about reviewing in general and presenting. Currently we are working on our video review that has a lot more depth than I initially thought as well as an interesting theme that will be fun to explore. I will be glad to be finished this project, but looking forward to more as we move into semester 2 and much more specific game related work.

Clockwise from top left: College Game, Attention Seekers, Distraction!

So overall Iv taken much from Ludology. We've had lots of challenging and interesting projects, cool lecture discussions and presentations. It is truly excellent to have to play video games as official research for class. Never before have I had to do anything that I have such an interest in. I think I am an even greater geek now than I was before I started this course and I am eternally grateful for that. Looking forward to semester 2!